The present invention relates to a combination cooker and cooler, and in particular a product transfer mechanism for transferring food product from the cooker to the cooler and for minimizing heat loss from the cooker to the cooler.
In mass processing of food product, food product is often heated by cooking or blanching the food product in a blanching food processing apparatus having a tank holding a heat transfer medium into which the food product is immersed. After cooking or blanching of the food product occurs, the food product is cooled or chilled by immersing the food product in a cooler transfer medium so that the food product may be packaged, stored and/or shipped. In one known system, a rotary drum blancher is used to first cook or blanch the food product. The food product is discharged onto a belt or other type of conveyor and advanced to a rotary drum cooler to reduce the food product temperature to an acceptable temperature.
In another known system, a single compact apparatus to heat and cool the food product in a continuous flow is used, that is a combination rotary cooker-cooler. A combination cooker-cooler generally includes a water tank divided into a heated compartment and a cooled compartment. Each compartment includes a drum rotatably mounted in the compartment. Food product is advanced through each drum by a helical auger and is transferred between the two drums. A combination cooker-cooler reduces the overall footprint of the food processing apparatus, however, such apparatus generally result in a loss of heat to the cooler portion when transferring food product from the cooker portion to the cooler portion. Conventional combination cooker-coolers use hot water, or a combination of hot water injected with steam, as the heat transfer medium. Previously, it was impractical to cook or blanch only using steam because steam leakage would be substantial, and therefore the process too expensive.